traces, still existing in the local names within a few hundred yards not only of each other, but of Croydon, we have next to inquire.
In our pilgrimage from this town to Beddington, as soon as we are well out of modern Croydon, we shall find ourselves in the hamlet of Waddon, once known, and marked in the old maps of Surrey, as Wodden or Woden. The name would here suggest that in its neighbourhood probably once stood a temple or idol of the great God of the northern men; that here were located, among their woods of oak and near to copious springs, the Anglo-Saxon, the Druidical, or a still earlier priesthood. That such was the case, let me remark, before we proceed to other indications of their former presence in the neighbourhood, the very name of the Wandel, which flows through Waddon, also seems to suggest. We may test, and perhaps render this pretty probable, by tracing the etymology of the similar name of Wandsdyke, or Wansditch, one of the great works of the early Britons, which extends across the county of Wilts. Now, when we find it is the opinion of most antiquarians that this great way or ditch derived its name from an adjacent temple of Woden, shall we not be justified in deeming it as probable, that our Wandel is also a corruption of Woden, and perhaps of dal, the old Saxon word for a dell or little valley? Camden, speaking of the Wansdyke, indeed remarks (Britannia, by Gibson, p. 84): "The natives have the tradition that it was made by the devil on a Wednesday (or Wodensday); the Saxons termed it Wodenesdic, that is Woden's or Mercury's Ditch, the village of Wodensburge [Camden adds] is near this dyke."
We may perhaps fairly then regard it as probable that close to the west or south-western side of the
